In today's global economy it is often logistically impossible for parties to meet fac& to face for even business critical meetings. However, the benefits of such meetings are as important as ever. With innumerable companies vying for each other's business, the personal relationships built through face to face meetings are often a critical factor in maintaining and growing a company's business. Over the last several years, videoconferencing technologies have been utilized to solve this dilemma. By using videoconferencing, companies are able to maintain visual relationships with clients while minimizing costs and lost time that are often associated with travel.
In conventional videoconferencing systems, the majority of videoconferencing components (including codec's, gatekeepers, gateways, and mcu's) operate under two umbrella recommendations of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T). The first recommendation, H.323, specifies the complete architecture and operation of real-time multimedia communications over packet networks, while the second, H.320, specifies real-time multimedia communications over circuit switched networks (ISDN). In an H.320 environment, end-users initiating a videoconference call typically dial a 10-digit number similar to dialing a telephone call. However, when initiating a videoconference call on an H.323 network, the end user is required to use IP (Internet Protocol) addresses.
While ISDN networks allow users to initiate videoconferences with relative ease, these systems are very limited in their functionality. In contrast to the ISDN networks, IP based video conferencing networks are able to provide almost unlimited additional features. Examples of such features might be video mail systems, operator access and data streaming.
While IP networks can provide these much desired features, a major failing of the H.323 networks is that the end user initiating the call must be familiar with IP addressing. Unfortunately, most users are not comfortable using IP addressing and are therefore either unable or unwilling to adopt videoconferencing as a day to day business tool. This inability to initiate calls using IP networks has substantially hampered the proliferation of videoconferencing.
In a previous effort to make videoconferencing more user friendly, gatekeeper technology was developed that allowed end users to initiate videoconference calls on IP networks by dialing a telephone-like number instead of entering an IP address. In addition, calls between IP and ISDN systems using added gateway devices were made possible by appending a service prefix that identified an ISDN network endpoint that was being called. In this system, end-users were required to use specific service prefixes which determined the type of call and what gateway the call would be sent to. Once the user dialed the prefix, a network gateway would reference a gateway prefix table, an example of which is shown in FIG. 1. The gateway prefix table would identify registered devices that were available to provide the service requested. When such a device was found, the gatekeeper would transfer the call setup information to that gateway. An example of a call using a gateway prefix table is shown in FIG. 2. For example, service prefix 6# could be used to define a 384 kbps bonded call with an ISDN destination endpoint within the U.S. The call would then be routed to one of a number of U.S. based gateways. Similarly, service prefix 16# could be used to define a 384 kbps bonded call to an international ISDN destination endpoint in Europe. This call would then be routed to a gateway in the U.K. While this system was technically efficient, users found it difficult to remember all of the different service prefixes and their meaning.
Also, this system required that the users input the correct service prefix for each call in order to route the call to the proper and most cost effective gateway. Users found this difficult for several reasons, for example, users often used the wrong prefix while making international calls, thereby routing the calls via domestic gateways at a substantially higher cost and causing a high degree of user dissatisfaction.